I understand it was always an appealing choice to a small subset of customers (have charging stations at home / work, only travel relatively short distances, etc) but all the disadvantages of EV that people are pointing out now were even worse a few years ago – like high purchase prices, range concerns, batteries underperforming in cold weather, lack of infrastructure, repairability etc.
What was the actual driver behind the massive EV boom?
In: Engineering
Lack of infrastructure and cold weather are still the two biggest challenges, but just about everything else listed is much less of an issue now than it was.
Range and batteries? They’re better than they ever have been. Lower end EVs easily maintain 200-300mi, the same as a smaller engine gas car, and luxury EVs are breaking the 500mi barrier. Chinese company NIO is deploying batteries with 700+mi range.
Cost? They’ve come way down. They’re priced pretty similarly to gas and PHEV cars in the same class with the same features, and in the US you get the benefit of the tax credit. In a lot of places in Europe and Asia they’re under the $30k price point. ESPECIALLY in China. Used EVs are a lot more accessible too. We just bought my mom a used Ioniq 5 with about 15-20k miles for the same price I bought my Passat with 50k a few years ago.
Infrastructure is also really only a MAJOR issue in North America, and the rollout of NACS changes that, because in addition to a unifying standard, non Tesla EVs can now use the Supercharger network. There’s also been new heavy investments from brands like Mercedes to start building new charging networks using the new standard.
Cold Weather is also still an issue, but it’s also an issue that’s regularly being studied with remedies being developed. Also, most new EVs will precondition the battery now for cold weather.
Latest Answers